[Boston Law 01.0] Unlawful Deeds

by David S. Brody

  He looked at his watch. Just past noon. At least there was something this afternoon to focus his mind on—the court had scheduled an emergency hearing on his enemy’s request to postpone the RTC’s foreclosure auction pending final resolution of the rent control dispute. The court would almost surely deny the motion; absent some showing of wrongdoing on the part of the mortgage holder, there was no defense to not paying the mortgage. And there was no evidence that the mortgage holder had been the cause of the vacancy decontrol fiasco. Bruce, more than anyone, knew that to be true.

  He pulled out his list of things to do prior to the auction. He had contacted the Springfield lawyer and made arrangements—including sending him the $50,000 deposit check—for him to drive in from Springfield to the auction and to bid up to $3 million on behalf of Arab Acquisitions. He had spoken with Reese Jeffries, and they had agreed that it would be a good idea to have somebody from the LAP office attend the auction and hand out copies of the court’s order imposing rent control on the property; that way, Bruce wouldn’t run the risk of some bidder being ignorant of the rent control situation and out-bidding him. And—in a gesture of paramount respect for his enemy—he had checked his safe deposit box to make sure that the unaltered certified copies of the vacancy decontrol certificates hadn’t somehow disappeared.

  One last thing to do. Howie would think it was strange if he didn’t check in, and there was no reason to raise anyone’s suspicions. He dialed the phone.

  “Howie Plansky here.”

  “Hi Howie, it’s Bruce Arrujo.”

  “Oh, how you doing, Bruce? Any more bad news for me?”

  “No. Just wanted to see if you wanted me to go to that hearing today. You know, your partner is trying to get the foreclosure auction postponed.”

  “Yeah, I know. You might as well go. But I think my real estate days are over. First Pierre murdered his tenant and went to jail. Then this deal blew up in my face. And now my so-called partner is wasting what little money we have left running into court every week.”

  Howie was really the only one who spoke of Pierre as if it were a given that he had killed Charese. “Yeah, I’m sure it hasn’t been much fun. I’ll give you a call after the hearing.”

  Bruce hung up. He had time for a quick sandwich on the way to the hearing. And he preferred to be a few minutes late to the hearing, anyway; that way, he wouldn’t have to make awkward small talk with Laura.

  * * *

  [February 28, 1991]

  Bruce tried Shelby one last time before leaving his office.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Arrujo, but Ms. Baskin is in a meeting right now. But she did want me to tell you that she’d see you at the auction.”

  “Thank you.” Well, at least she was coming to the auction. Of course, she had professional reasons for being there as well, although she had been dogmatic in her refusal to discuss the investigation with Bruce in any way. In fact, he had no clue as to whether the DA’s office was close to making an arrest, or if they had followed the bread crumbs Bruce had laid out to the point of even focusing on his enemy as a suspect.

  Bruce looked out his window—a clear day, so the RTC officials traveling to Boston for the auction should have no problems getting to town. Bruce had heard a story where an auction had to be postponed, at a cost to the taxpayers of almost $20,000 in re-advertising expenses and attorney fees, simply because the RTC employee in charge of the foreclosure got a flat tire on the way to the auction.

  With that story in mind, Bruce—in his Ahmed Bahery persona—had instructed the Springfield attorney to arrive in Boston first thing in the morning to do a title search on the property; that way, even if he had a breakdown or minor accident, he would still have time to get to the auction by two o’clock. At 11:30, Bruce had actually telephoned the Registry of Deeds and paged the attorney, just to make sure he had made it to town. When the attorney answered the page, Bruce hung up.

  There was still an hour to go before the auction. The court, at yesterday’s hearing, had denied his enemy’s request to postpone the auction, and Bruce smiled as he imagined the sense of loss his foe must be feeling now that he knew he would be losing his treasure. Bruce’s sense of triumph was diminished, however, by the fact that his adversary did not yet know that Bruce had been the rock upon which his ship had shattered. And that Bruce’s hands would soon be the ones in which his treasure rested. Perhaps, after the auction, Bruce would indulge in a little self-gratification and regale his enemy with some tales of the sea.

  Bruce grabbed his jacket, scarf and gloves, took a final look at his “To do” list, and strolled down the hall to the elevator. He felt the adrenaline pumping through his system, broke into a slow jog when he reached the street. He needed to burn some energy—it would be of no use to him today. Today he was merely an observer. He had caused today’s events, and in many ways could predict them, but he no longer could control them. He had built the bomb and then lit the fuse, trained the dog and then unleashed it, pointed the ship and then set it adrift. But today would be what today would be.

  Bruce jogged slowly through the Common, then westward on Boylston Street for two or three miles, ignoring the chafing caused by his wingtips rubbing against the back of his heels. Just past Fenway Park, he ducked into a fast food restaurant bathroom and washed his face, dried his armpits, and straightened his tie.

  He walked the final two blocks to Fenway Place. Unlike the last RTC auctions when the agency utilized a sealed-bid format to sell first the Fenway Place mortgage and then Pierre’s interest in the property, this auction was an actual foreclosure sale of the property and was required under Massachusetts law to be held in an “open cry” format at the property. The auction wouldn’t begin for another twenty minutes, but there was already a crowd of about fifteen or twenty people milling about on the sidewalk in front of the main entrance to the complex. He nodded to Reese Jeffries, who was diligently handing out copies of the court order placing the property under rent control. He spotted the Springfield attorney; Bruce had never met him in person, but his face was familiar to Bruce from his late-night television commercials. Many of the other faces were familiar to Bruce as well, from foreclosures he had conducted. He moved through the crowd, exchanging pleasantries.

  From what he could tell, only three people, in addition to the Springfield attorney, were carrying bidder registration folders, meaning the others were merely spectators. So far, so good—the fewer the number of bidders, the better. It only took one idiot bidding like a drunken sailor to ruin Bruce’s plans.

  The crowd was predominantly male and, almost in unison, heads turned toward the figure of an attractive woman approaching the group. She looked vaguely familiar to Bruce, but a brimmed hat, scarf and sunglasses hid her features, and he couldn’t quite place her.

  She slipped past him and approached the auctioneer. Bruce watched, saw her register to bid. Who was she?

  A gentle tap on his shoulder interrupted his thoughts. He sensed Shelby more than saw or heard or smelled her. “Hi, Bruce.” Her eyes were bloodshot, her expression somber. She was with two other people, a woman in a blue suit who looked to be in her mid-forties, and a hard, sinewy man who, though in street clothes, made no attempt to hide the fact that he was a cop. They broke away from Shelby and moved toward the auctioneer.

  “Hi, Shelbs. You look upset. What’s wrong?”

  Her eyes, pained and angry, bore into him. “Everything.”

  Bruce stared back at her intently, then followed her eyes as they broke from his and looked over to the auctioneer. The auctioneer was pointing out the Springfield attorney to Shelby’s two companions. Bruce spun his head back to Shelby. What the fuck?

  She had watched him, seen his reaction to the auctioneer identifying the Springfield attorney. A tear rolled down her porcelain cheek, then she spoke. “I was hoping I was wrong.”

  He looked back toward the Springfield attorney, saw Shelby’s companion handing him an official-looking set of papers. “What are you talking ab
out. What’s going on?”

  “Please, no more lies. We know all about Arab Acquisitions and your whole sick, evil plan. Your attorney friend won’t be bidding today—he’s just been served with an injunction. Arab Acquisitions and its agents are barred from bidding. At least I can take a little joy in that. You killed my friend, and you framed an innocent man, and you used me in the worst way, but at least you won’t walk away with this property today.” Her eyes fired in rage, the normally blue-green color now the blue-black of a twilight storm. “So fuck you, you murdering scumbag.”

  “Wait, Shelby, wait.” He grabbed at her as she started to turn away. She shook his arm away. The cop took a threatening step toward Bruce, patted the gun on his hip. “Please, just listen for a minute. You’re right about me framing Pierre, but I didn’t kill Charese, and God knows I didn’t use you, Shelby. I love you. Please listen to me.”

  She turned back to study him. For the first time, he wanted her to see him totally unmasked, to sense his vulnerability. He was finally telling the truth, for all it mattered. He pleaded with her with his eyes. But her voice was ice. “I’m listening. But I want the whole story, all the details. Start at the beginning. And no bullshit.”

  Bruce took a deep breath. “All right, you probably figured a lot of this out already, but here goes:

  “As soon as Pierre came to me with the Fenway Place deal, I was trying to figure out a way to take it from him. When he first submitted his bid to the RTC, he had to sign the affidavit that attested that nobody in the ownership group was in default on any RTC loans. But he never gave me a copy of it, so I acted like I didn’t know anything about it. But the woman at the RTC had faxed it to me, so I actually did know about it. So when it came time to structure Pierre’s deal with Felloff, I made Felloff a silent partner. I didn’t know how I was going to light the fuse, but I knew I had planted a little bomb in the deal that eventually I might be able to set off.” In the background, the auctioneer was asking for opening bids.

  Bruce continued. “Well, when Charese was found murdered, and I learned that Pierre was a suspect, well, it was almost too good to be true. As it turns out, it was too good to be true, but I’ll get to that later. So I drafted that memo about Pierre talking about murdering Charese, then conveniently lost my briefcase, with the memo in it. Then I dressed up in disguise and turned the briefcase in to the police, knowing you guys would eventually get the memo. Of course I knew that Pierre was only kidding when he talked about killing Charese, but it was a perfect opportunity to keep him as the focus of the investigation.”

  Shelby interrupted him, in a low voice. “You were willing to let him go to jail for the rest of his life?”

  Bruce thought for a moment, then shrugged meekly. “Well, I knew you wouldn’t be able to convict him, because the memo was covered by the attorney-client privilege. That was the beauty of the memo—it made Pierre the prime suspect, but you couldn’t use it as evidence against him.”

  “We couldn’t use it against him once you established that Pierre was your client, you mean.”

  Bruce nodded. The bidding had started—the attractive woman who had looked familiar to him was bidding, as were a couple of others. “Exactly. And the only way to prove that Pierre was my client was to show you the partnership agreement, which listed him as a partner in the Fenway Place deal. That made him my client.”

  “And the partnership agreement listed Felloff as part of the ownership group.”

  “Right. And I was counting on somebody in your office to pick up on that. But nobody did.”

  “So let me guess—you called in an anonymous tip to the RTC. Mr. Good Citizen.”

  Bruce nodded, ignored the sarcasm. “I figured you guys would be thrilled to be able to put Pierre away, at least for a little while. I mean, here was a guy that you were almost sure killed Charese, and he was likely going to walk on a technicality. With my anonymous tip about the affidavit, at least you could make him serve a little time.”

  “Well, you’ll be pleased to know that your little puppets did just as you thought they would.”

  “Anyway, to answer your original question, I was pretty sure Pierre wouldn’t be spending the rest of his life in jail. I knew that you really didn’t have much other evidence against him, so it seemed like he could beat a murder rap, if it came to that. But I knew it wouldn’t get that far.”

  “Let me guess again—it was your idea to hire Mike Callahan as Pierre’s attorney.”

  “Yeah. My goal was to get Pierre to agree to a forfeiture of the Fenway Place property in exchange for the DA dropping the murder charge. Callahan was the natural choice for putting that kind of deal together.”

  “So then you could go buy Pierre’s interest at the forfeiture auction.”

  The bidding was now between the familiar-looking attractive woman and the RTC, and had moved to the $600,000 range. All of the other bidders had dropped out. “Right. But somebody outbid me. And that somebody is the murderer. That’s why I told you to follow the money.”

  “That’s right, you did tell me that, and that’s why I did. You know what we found? We found that the winning bidder was some offshore corporation represented by a big New York law firm, and we couldn’t even begin to penetrate its shell without probable cause to get a subpoena. But your theory seemed like a good one, so we decided to check out the other bidders. I mean, under your theory it stood to reason that the murderer would make a bid, but there was no guarantee he would win. So Dom”—Shelby nodded at the cop—“kept on digging. And you know what else he found? He found that some company named Arab Acquisitions was the second highest bidder, and that Arab Acquisitions also happened to be the high bidder at a couple of other foreclosure auctions. And at both of those auctions, you were the attorney. And it struck me: The name Bruce Arrujo keeps popping up in this case. Like a weed. And that triggered something in my mind. Why did you go to that baseball game with Pierre? You told me you hated baseball, and you also told me you never planned to stay at your firm for more than a year or two. So why cultivate Pierre as a client? Some people might do it just to be friendly, but that didn’t sound like you either—I mean, you never went out of your way to socialize with him before. It just didn’t add up, unless you had another reason.”

  Bruce nodded. It was always the stupid little details. That was the problem with intimacy—if he had reached orgasm sooner, Shelby never would have brought up the whole Woody Allen baseball skit, and she never would have known he hated baseball.

  Shelby continued. “So, under your theory, I just kept following the money. If my suspicions were right, it would make sense that Arab Acquisitions would be here to bid today. So I watched carefully for your reaction when we served that injunction on the Springfield attorney. I’ll tell you—the whole thing was almost worth it, just to see the look of horror on your face.”

  They stared at each other, neither speaking. The auctioneer broke the silence. “Sold! $640,000, to the young lady.”

  Bruce blanched. Shelby smiled broadly. “There’s that look again. She got quite a good deal, huh? Recognize the winning bidder?”

  Bruce turned to study the bidder again. As he did so, she met his glance. She smiled at him coldly, then removed her sunglasses, her hat, her scarf. Bruce gasped. “Carla!” She winked at him, turned away.

  Shelby chuckled. “Oh, I forgot that part of the story. When I became suspicious of you, I went to visit Carla. She’s the one who really had her doubts about you. Told me her kid wouldn't go near you. When I told her about the auction, and how the vacancy decontrol certificates had been altered, she just started laughing. She said she knew you were up to something, but she didn’t know what. But she’s no dummy, and she knew how important those certificates were to the property, so she went down to the Rent Equity Board and made certified copies of the certificates before she gave them to you. And now she owns the building—$640,000, and free from rent control. She might even be able to pay cash for it, given that it seems to me she and Pi
erre have quite a good case for malpractice against Stoak, Puck and Beal.”

  Bruce braced himself against a tree, fought to regain his composure. He had lost the treasure. And he had lost Shelby. As for his enemy, he—like Bruce—had suffered grave losses; neither could yet declare victory over the other.

  He looked back into the eyes of the woman he loved. “You’ve got everything right, except one thing. There’s another player in this whole thing, and he’s the killer, not me.”

  Shelby eyes softened, but only slightly. “I’d like to believe—at least—that you’re not a murderer. I’m still listening.”

  * * *

  An hour later, Bruce stepped into the lobby of his office building. He stopped, looked out onto the street. He spoke in a normal voice: “Testing, one, two, three.” Dom, sitting with Shelby and Jennifer Palmer in the unmarked police car, gave him the thumbs up sign. Bruce nodded, walked toward the elevator bank.

  He pushed the 57 button, as he had hundreds of times before. It was late in the afternoon, and he was alone on his journey skyward. The doors opened, and Bruce smiled a greeting at the receptionist. “Do you know if Mr. Puck is in?”

  “Um, yes, Bruce, I believe he’s in his office.”

  “Thanks.” Bruce walked down the hall, turned into a conference room facing the front of the building. He peered down to the street below; the car containing Shelby and Dom was barely visible. “Testing again, one, two, three.” The passenger side door swung open in response.

  Puck’s office was just around the corner. Bruce didn’t bother knocking. Puck’s back was to him, looking out the window. “Puck, you son of a bitch.” Bruce slammed the door shut.

  Puck responded without even turning fully around. “Ah, Mr. Arrujo. So nice to see you. Have you fully recovered from your illness?” Bruce and Puck had communicated only by voicemail and memos since Bruce’s return from his week on the beach.